It’s no secret that labor is the single largest operating expense for independent salon owners. You can also argue that your profitability depends in large part on the quality of your staff’s performance. So, it makes sense that salon owners who measure the cost of their employees’ labor against their performance tend to do better.

A salon management software that allows you to run monthly reports can be an effective way to keep track of your employees’ progress and can give you the information you need to implement your strategies for growth. It also will let you examine any changes in performance so you can manage performance proactively.

That’s why Booker has upgraded its Salon Intelligence Report. It’s an essential tool for managing your spa or salon based on actionable metrics that mean the most to you, including staff productivity, client retention, and average product-per-ticket. Using the intelligence report to see how your spa or salon is performing will also help you focus on areas to improve. You can use the information the reports provide to give employees feedback on their individual performance, as well as how they are performing compared to the industry and their co-workers.

For those of you who already have Booker Software, you can find the Salon Intelligence Report in the Reports tab, under Employee/Staff. It provides established benchmarks to compare your business and employees against. And it can be configured just for spas, just for salons or for facilities that provide both spa and salon services.

Two features of the software that spa and salon owners might find especially useful are:

Location View. The location view, which is the default view, looks at your location as a whole. At a quick glance you can see how you are doing in sales, productivity, client retention, and other Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). This view is a great way to understand how well your business is selling services, products and retaining guests. At a high level, it can give you insight into whether or not you want your business to start upselling products or push a bit harder to pre-book clients. For example, if it shows you that the percentage of service customers purchasing product is only 7%, you may want to encourage your staff to upsell more or consider a new promotion or campaign.

Staff View. The staff view breaks out performance by employee and lets you see their individual productivity, client retention, and KPI performance. For instance, if a stylist’s or technician’s booking numbers are low compared to the number of hours they’re available and their pre-book percentage is not in line with industry average, you may want to discuss their performance with them.

Here are some details the Booker Salon Intelligence Report provides for the productivity and client retention data:

Productivity: the percentage of time a staff member is with a guest. This category includes:

Potential Hours: The hours available for appointments.

Booked Hours: The hours reserved with appointments.

Percent Booked: The number of hours reserved with appointments / the number of potential hours (hours scheduled).

Client Retention: the percentage of the location’s service guests who return for an additional service within 90 days of their last service. This includes:

All Clients: All clients who have visited the location.

New Clients: Clients who had not previously received service in the location.

Existing Clients: Clients who have previously received service in the location.

Other key metrics include:

Retail per Client Ticket: The monetary value of how much product is being sold to all clients or the total retail sales per the total number of clients.

Service per Service Ticket: How much service revenue clients bring in per ticket, or the total service sales per total number of clients.

% Clients Pre-booked: The percentage of service clients who, on the day of their service, reserved an appointment in the future with the same service provider or a different one.

% Clients Rebooked: The percentage of service clients who, on the day of their service, reserved an appointment in the future with the same service provider.

Here is an example of a report on staff metrics:

While our current report is geared towards the spa and salon industries, many of the benchmarks provided in the report, such as staff productivity and client retention, are beneficial metrics for any appointment-based business.

If you would like more information about this valuable tool, please visit our Help Center. If your business is in other service industries and you’d like to learn more, contact Booker Support at 1-866-966-9885.

About the Author

As SVP of Product, Mike Sommers is responsible for managing Booker’s product strategy and roadmap, accelerating development of the platform’s capabilities and the growth of the businesses that run on it. Mike brings over 15 years of experience creating innovative business and consumer software products across a variety of platforms including local, social, search, video and mobile.